Zoe's rapid training, however, was only one of Gabriel's concerns. There were vehicles to rent, additional personnel to move into place, and a safe flat to acquire on the Right Bank of the river Seine, not far from the Hotel de Ville. And given the high-profile involvement of the British, there were many high-profile meetings to attend. The Iran team from MI6 found its way to the planning table, as did representatives of the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence. Indeed, each time Gabriel entered Thames House, the crowd seemed larger. There were obvious risks to working in such close proximity to sister intelligence services—namely, that those same services were taking careful note of every operational tendency they were able to observe. Gabriel's exposure was increased by the fact that he was living and working inside an MI5 safe house. Though Graham Seymour denied he was listening in on the preparations, Gabriel was confident that every word uttered by his team was being recorded and analyzed by MI5. But such was the price to be paid for British cooperation against Martin Landesmann. And for Zoe.

Gabriel remained faithful to the original operational accord and grudgingly allowed Graham Seymour to handle Zoe's surveillance. Over the objections of the lawyers, Seymour extended the zone of coverage to include Zoe's telephone and computer inside the offices of the Financial Journal. The intercepts of her calls and electronic correspondence exposed no indiscretion or second thoughts of any kind. Nor did they reveal any undisclosed contact from one Martin Landesmann, chairman of Global Vision Investments of Geneva.

On Zoe's final night at the Highgate safe house, she seemed more focused than ever. And if she was at all frightened by what lay ahead, she gave no sign of it. She resolutely stepped onto Gabriel's conveyor belt and was whisked one last time from room to room, briefing to briefing. Her night ended, as usual, in the upstairs study. Gabriel switched off the lights and listened carefully while she rehearsed for a final time.

"Done," she said. "How long did it take?"

"Two minutes, fourteen seconds."

"That's good?"

"Very good."

"Did you hear anything?"

"Not a sound."

"Are we finished?"

"Not quite." Gabriel switched on the lights and looked at her thoughtfully. "It's not too late to change your mind, Zoe. We'll find some other way of getting to him. And I promise that none of us will think any less of you."

"Yes, but I might." She was silent for a moment. "You should know something about me, Mr. Allon. Once I've made a decision, I stick to it. I never break promises, and I hate to make mistakes."

"We share that affliction."

"I thought so."

Zoe picked up the rehearsal phone. "Any last-minute advice?"

"My team has prepared you well, Zoe."

"Yes, they have." She looked up at him. "But they're not you."

Gabriel took the phone from her grasp. "Once you start, move quietly but quickly. Don't creep around like a cat burglar. Visualize your actions before you take them. And don't think about the bodyguards. We'll worry about the bodyguards. All you have to worry about is Martin. Martin is your responsibility."

"I'm not sure I can pretend to be in love with him."

"Humans are natural liars. They mislead and dissemble hundreds of times each day without even realizing it. Martin Landesmann happens to be an extraordinary liar. But with your help, we can beat him at his own game. The mind is like a basin, Zoe. It can be filled and emptied at will. When you walk into his apartment tomorrow night, we don't exist. Only Martin. You just have to be in love with him one more night."

"And after that?"

"You go back to your life and pretend none of it ever happened."

"And what if that's not possible?"

"The mind is like a basin, Zoe. Pull the plug, and the memory drains away."

With that, Gabriel walked her downstairs and helped her into the back of an MI5 Rover. As usual, Zoe immediately switched on her mobile phone to conduct a bit of work during the short drive home to Hampstead. Because the device had spent a few minutes in the capable hands of Mordecai earlier that evening, the team now knew Zoe's altitude, latitude, longitude, and the speed at which she was traveling. They were also able to hear everything she was saying to her MI5 minder and were able to monitor both ends of a call she placed to her editor in chief, Jason Turnbury. Within five minutes of the call's termination, they had downloaded her e-mail, text messages, and several months' worth of Internet activity. They also downloaded several dozen photographs, including one she snapped six months earlier of a shirtless Martin Landesmann sunning himself on the deck of his chalet in Gstaad.

The presence of the photograph on Zoe's telephone provoked a fierce debate among Gabriel's team, which they conducted in a terse form of colloquial Hebrew no MI5 listener would ever be able to translate. Yaakov, a man with a complicated personal life of his own, moved for immediate termination of the entire operation. "There's just one reason why a woman would keep a picture like that. She's still in love with him. And if you send her into his apartment tomorrow night, she'll sink us all." But it was Dina—Dina of the much-broken heart—who talked Yaakov down from his ledge. "Sometimes a woman likes to stare at a man she hates just as much as one she loves. Zoe Reed hates Martin more than she's ever hated anyone in her life. And she wants to bring him down just as much as we do."

Oddly enough, it was Zoe herself who settled the dispute an hour later, when Martin phoned from Geneva to say how much he was looking forward to seeing her in Paris. The call was brief; Zoe's performance, exemplary. After severing the connection, she immediately dialed Highgate to report the call, then settled into bed for a few hours of sleep. As she switched off her bedside lamp, they overheard a single word that left little doubt about her true feelings for Martin Landesmann.

"Bastard..."

The following morning when Gabriel arrived at Thames House, it seemed the whole of Whitehall was waiting in the ninth-floor conference room. After enduring an hour of rigorous questioning, he was made to swear a blood oath that, if caught on French soil, he would say nothing of British or American involvement in the affair. Seeing no papers to sign, Gabriel raised his right hand, then slipped quickly out the door. Much to his surprise, Graham Seymour insisted on driving him to St. Pancras Station.

"To what do I owe the honor?" Gabriel asked as the car pulled into Horseferry Road.

"I wanted a word in private."

"About?"

"Zoe's mobile phone." Seymour looked at Gabriel and frowned. "You signed an agreement to let us handle her surveillance and you violated it the moment our backs were turned."

"Did you really think I was going to send her into Martin's apartment without audio coverage?"

"Just make sure you shut down the feed once she's safely back on British soil. So far, we've managed to avoid shooting ourselves in the foot. I'd prefer to keep it that way."

"The best way to shoot ourselves in the foot would be to lose Zoe in Paris tomorrow night."

"But that's not going to happen, is it, Gabriel?"

"Not if we run the operation my way."

Seymour gazed out the window at the Thames. "I don't have to remind you that a good many careers are in your hands, mine included. Do whatever you need to do to get Martin's phone and computer. But make sure you bring our girl home in one piece."

"That's the plan, Graham."

"Yes," Seymour said distantly. "But you know what they say about the best laid schemes of mice and men. They sometimes go astray with disastrous results. And if there's one thing Whitehall doesn't like, it's a disaster. Especially one that occurs in France."